The present invention relates to the field of precision aspheric optical elements, especially lenses, whose surfaces are produced by means of single point machining.
Optical imaging systems using conventional spherical lenses generally require a large number of surfaces, and hence a large number of elements, in order to correct for optical aberrations present in the system, and thereby to improve the image quality. In principle, if the number of elements is unlimited, the optical system designer can propose spherical lens assemblies which can, in almost every case, simultaneously correct for all of the common optical aberrations in a lens system of any desired f-number. However, the number of surfaces required to do this may be so high that the resulting lens assembly is excessively large in size and weight, and expensive to produce. Furthermore, because of the residual reflections from each surface, and the bulk absorption in each lens, the transmission of the complete lens assembly may be unduly reduced.
The use of aspheric surfaces, with or without the incorporation of diffractive elements, allows the design and construction of lens assemblies with the same or even better optical performance than an equivalent all-spherical system, but in most cases, with a significant reduction in the number of elements required, and therefore a significant improvement in the overall lens assembly size, weight, cost and optical transmission. In many cases, each aspherical surface in an optical system can be used to replace at least two spherical surfaces. This advantage becomes particularly important in the construction of lens systems for use in thermal imaging systems, such as those which operate in the 8 to 12 micron or the 3 to 5 micron wavelength regions. In order to increase the sensitivity of such systems, the lenses used often have large apertures of the order of several inches. Furthermore, of the materials available for use in these spectral regions, such as germanium, CVD-grown zinc selenide or zinc sulphide, silicon, gallium arsenide, calcium fluoride, and others, some are very expensive, and savings engendered by a reduction in the number of elements, both in material costs and in production and coating costs. are therefore a very significant factor in reducing total system cost. These savings usually outweigh the additional cost of production of the aspheric surfaces.
There are three main methods of producing aspheric surfaces on optical lenses. For the production of low precision aspheric optical elements for use in the visible or near infra-red, aspheric elements are made by casting or molding materials such as glass or optical grade polymers. Because the molds are so expensive to manufacture, such lenses have been used in mass produced optical equipment such as still and video cameras, and in optical disc readers, such as video disc players and optical memory discs. Such lenses generally contain aspheric elements with one side aspheric and the other side plane or spherical.
A number of patents have recently been granted for inventions which use mass produced lenses with both surfaces of aspherical form. In what is possibly the earliest such patent, U.S. Pat. No. 4,449,792 to N. Arai, S. Ishiyama and T. Kojima, a large aperture single lens is described having both surfaces aspheric. The lens is designed for use as the pickup lens in a video disk reader, and is made of plastic to make it lightweight. A similar lens has been described by M. Koboyashi, K. Kushida and N. Arai, in U.S. Pat. No. 5,475,537. An optical system with improved performance is described, for use in recording and reading information at visible or near infra-red wavelengths on an optical information medium. The system uses a double-sided aspheric objective lens for the imaging function. This lens is described as being made of glass or of xe2x80x9cresinxe2x80x9d, the resin presumably being a transparent optical grade plastic material. In U.S. Pat. No. 5,583,698 to K. Yamada et al, is described a double aspheric lens for use in a video camera zoom lens. In U.S. Pat. No. 5,642,229 is described a double-aspheric lens for use in a projection lens unit, while in U.S. Pat. No. 5,726,799, a double aspheric lens is described for use in the viewfinder of a compact camera.
All of the above patents describe double aspheric lenses made of glass or plastic materials, and for use in the visible or near infra-red. These are suitable materials from which lenses can be manufactured at low cost, by casting or by molding. Though it is possible to manufacture a mold which will produce high precision cast or molded double aspheric lenses, the system requirements of such lenses are not usually high enough to warrant the cost of such precision. Molding or casting are therefore used, in general, to provide elements with sufficient precision for the requirements of such comparatively low cost, mass produced systems.
Almost all of the optical elements in optical imaging systems for use in the thermal infra-red region are made of materials which cannot be easily cast or molded, if at all. More important, even if they could be manufactured by these methods, the optical precision in these imaging systems is such that the precision afforded by these methods, at a reasonable manufacturing cost, generally falls far short of the system requirements, Maximum surface peak-to-valley irregularities of the order of xcex/2 at the red HeNe wavelengths (0.63 xcexcm) are required in the elements of many such systems to ensure adequate performance. The accuracy of optical surfaces are often measured by using the interference fringes of red HeNe laser light, and for this reason, a description of accuracy in terms of wavelengths of red HeNe laser light is used throughout this specification and is also thus claimed.
The second production method for producing aspheric surfaces are specialized variations of conventional polishing techniques, wherein position dependent pressure is applied to the polishing pad to produce the aspheric form. This method is very labor intensive, and can generally only be used to produce slight asphericity. Recently, automated machines for performing such polishing have been developed.
On an industrial scale, the current almost universally used method of producing the aspheric surfaces of such precision elements, especially those for thermal imaging systems, is by means of turning with a single crystal diamond tool, on a special purpose, ultra-high precision, vibration-free lathe, whose spindle runs at medium to high speeds in air bearings, and which generally uses laser metrology in order to measure the progress of the work. Such diamond turning lathes are capable of accuracies of better than 25 nanometers, and can produce an optical surface of sufficiently high quality for use in the elements of such thermal imaging systems. The cutting tool used is generally a single crystal diamond, specially shaped to provide a smooth cut, though other suitable single point turning tools may also be used. The aspheric profile is obtained by suitable CNC control of the motion of the single point cutting tool relative to the workpiece. Diamond machining can be efficiently applied for small or large production quantities, and for many of the currently used infra-red materials, and others. Furthermore, diamond cutting technology can be used for cutting diffractive patterns in addition to the aspheric surface, thereby further increasing the optical performance of the element.
Single point machining of precision optical elements is also used in a fly cutting configuration, wherein the workpiece is substantially static and the cutting tool is rotated at high speed over the element to provide the machining cut. The desired surface profile is obtained by suitable CNC control of the relative motion between the cutting tool holder and the element being produced. Fly cutting is often used in order to produce precision elements without an axis of rotational symmetry, such as precision cylindrical or elliptical surfaces on mirrors or on transmissive elements. Throughout this patent, the use of the term aspheric is understood also to include such cylindrical or elliptical surface shapes. In addition, flat surfaces are also commonly prepared by means of fly cutting.
Throughout this patent, the use of terms such as xe2x80x9cturningxe2x80x9d, xe2x80x9cmachiningxe2x80x9d, xe2x80x9csingle point machiningxe2x80x9d, xe2x80x9cfly cuttingxe2x80x9d, xe2x80x9cdiamond turningxe2x80x9d or xe2x80x9cdiamond machiningxe2x80x9d or their equivalents, which may have been used interchangeably, are all understood to mean forms of very high precision surface material removal using a sharp tool to produce an optical quality surface, whether strictly termed turning, machining, milling, or any other similar surface material removal technology, and whether the tool is of diamond or of any other suitable material.
However, up to now, it has been possible to produce elements with only one aspheric surface using diamond turning. The second surface has to be either planar or spherical. This has limited the ultimate usefulness of aspheric surfaces in the art of optical design for the thermal infra-red region, since present optimal designs may still require a larger number of lenses than would be required if lenses with both surfaces aspheric were available.
The reason that precision lenses can currently be produced with only one surface aspheric is an outcome of the methods currently available for holding the workpiece during machining and for testing the holder. The element must be tightly held during machining, yet without imposing any internal stresses. This is done using a vacuum chuck, with the rear surface of the workpiece in intimate contact with the chuck surface. The chuck has a diameter at least as large as that of the element itself, and the vacuum is delivered to the rear surface of the element by means of a series of circular grooves cut in the chuck surface. The use of vacuum chucking, which pulls the rear surface of the workpiece onto the chuck surface, is an important factor in supporting the workpiece without stress. If the workpiece were mechanically clamped at its edge, as in conventional turning or fly cutting, it would be under deformation while being worked, and though perfectly formed while in the chuck, it would spring back on release to its unstressed position, thereby losing its precision form.
In addition, in order to ensure stress free seating of the workpiece in the chuck, the chuck surface itself is made to optical quality. In the words of P. R. Hall in the article entitled xe2x80x9cUse of aspheric surfaces in infra-red optical designsxe2x80x9d published in Optical Engineering, Vol. 26, pp. 1102-1111 (November 1987), the disclosure of which, and of all documents cited therein, are hereby incorporated by reference, xe2x80x9cIt is an essential feature of diamond machining that the workpiece is chucked on reference surfaces that have been cut by the machine.xe2x80x9d The chuck surface itself is therefore made by diamond turning, if spherical, or, by diamond fly cutting if flat. The rear surface of the workpiece is then given an optical surface of identical mating shape, so that it sits in the chuck stress-free.
The main reason that only flat or spherical chucking surfaces are currently used arises from the fact that even in a well produced batch of aspheric surfaces, each one has slightly different surface irregularities, to a much greater degree than conventionally polished spherical surfaces. Therefore, even if an accurate aspheric chuck were made, each aspherically produced first surface would sit slightly differently in the chuck, and would prevent accurate machining of the second surface.
A secondary reason which has prevented the use of aspheric chucks, arises from the need to test the accuracy of the chuck surface being turned or cut while it is still on the diamond turning or fly-cutting machine. This is necessary so that figure corrections can be made in successive cuts, in order to obtain a highly accurate final cut. This testing is done by looking for the interference fringes between the worked surface and a suitable test glass using monochromatic light. Since aspheric test glasses are considerably more difficult to produce than spherical ones, up to now, only spherical or flat chucks have been generally produced.
There exist other methods of measuring the power and irregularity of an aspheric surface of the chuck, such as with a profile measurement instrument such as the Rank Talysurf manufactured by Rank Taylor Hobson of Leicester, England. Use of this instrument is not feasible for two reasons. Firstly, the presence of the vacuum grooves in the chuck surface interfere with the measurement, and these grooves must be cut before the surface is finished, as otherwise, cutting the grooves would distort the finished surface. Secondly, the Talysurf can only be used while the surface under test is off the machine, and removal and replacement of the chuck between testing off-line and machining would effectively degrade the accuracy of the whole machining process.
In the above-mentioned article by P. R. Hall (op. cit.), which compares a number of aspherically designed lens systems with equivalent systems designed using only spherical lenses, the author always refers to the addition of one aspherical surface per element, and of a second aspherical surface being added only to a second element.
Similarly, in U.S. Pat. No. 5,668,671 to M. Erdmann, assigned to British Aerospace plc, one of the leaders in the field of diamond turned lens design and production, there is described a dioptric imaging lens system for use in the thermal infra-red region. The lens elements are made of germanium and silicon, presumably with any aspheric surfaces diamond-turned to provide the precision required for the application. The only aspheric lens described or claimed therein, has only one of its surfaces aspheric.
There therefore exists a need for double-sided precision aspheric lenses, with or without the addition of diffractive patterns, especially for use in the thermal infra-red region, for improving the transmission and imaging performance of such optical systems.
The disclosures of all publications and patents mentioned in this section and in the other sections of the specification, and the disclosures of all documents cited in the above publications and patents, are hereby incorporated by reference.
The present invention seeks to provide a new precision optical element with both surfaces of aspheric form, with or without the addition of a diffractive pattern on either or both surfaces. The present invention also seeks to provide a method whereby such an element can be produced by means of single point machining, such as diamond turning or fly cutting. In addition, the present invention seeks to provide a novel vacuum chuck for holding such an optical element in order to carry out this method. Furthermore, the present invention seeks to provide new optical system designs and applications using such double-sided aspheric elements, thereby providing in many cases, significant improvement over currently available optical systems.
Precision lenses with both surfaces aspheric, with or without the addition of a diffractive pattern on one or both of the surfaces, would enable many optical systems to be designed and constructed with an even smaller number of elements than currently used, with concomitant further savings in cost, size and weight, and further improvement in system performance in terms of transmission and image quality. There are two specific situations where the use of lenses with both surfaces aspheric would provide significant advantages:
(1) Optical designs which require the use of a thick lenses, or of lenses with high refractive indices, which is indeed the case for many infra-red materials.
(2) Optical designs which would require the use of a surface with a very steep aspheric curvature. Such a surface is expensive and difficult to manufacture. The use of an element with both surfaces aspheric would enable the aspheric curvature to be divided between the two surfaces, thus simplifying the manufacture and testing of the element.
Modern thermal imaging systems, which use large numerical apertures in order to achieve high efficiency, are often designed to use lenses of the above two types. The use of double-sided precision aspheric lenses, with or without the addition of a diffractive pattern too, would therefore significantly improve the transmission and imaging performance of such optical systems, especially those for use in the thermal infra-red region.
There is thus provided in accordance with a preferred embodiment of the present invention, a precision optical element, such as is used in thermal imaging systems in the infra-red, manufactured by means of single point machining, with both of its surfaces having an aspheric form. The element is produced while held in a novel vacuum chuck, according to another preferred embodiment of the present invention, in which the support surface for the element is in the form of an aspherically machined ring or other shape, of width in the radial direction significantly less than the radius of the element, and whose form is matched to the aspheric first surface of the element to be chucked for machining. This is in contrast to prior art chucks, which support the whole of the element""s surface. In this way, the effect of inaccuracy in the aspheric machining of either the chuck support surface, or the rear surface of the element being machined, is reduced, and an accurate aspheric surface can be cut on the second side also.
In accordance with another preferred embodiment of the present invention, there is further provided a method of single point turning precision aspheric elements with both surfaces aspheric, and comprising the steps of forming the first aspheric surface on the element, forming the support surface of a vacuum chuck of the type described above, such that it has an aspheric surface matched to the first aspheric surface formed on the element, and subsequently machining the second aspheric surface on the element while it is held by its first aspheric surface in the vacuum chuck.
In accordance with yet another preferred embodiment of the present invention, there are further provided novel optical systems using double-sided aspheric elements according to the present invention, with a smaller number of elements than previously available prior art systems, and hence with lower volume, weight and production costs, as well as higher optical transmission and improved imaging performance.
In accordance with further preferred embodiments of the present invention, there is provided a precision optical element including first and second aspheric surfaces, at least one of which is produced by single point machining, or a precision optical element as above wherein both surfaces are produced by single point machining.
In accordance with a further preferred embodiment of the present invention, there is also provided a precision optical element as described above, and wherein the single point machining is executed by means of a diamond tool.
In accordance with still another preferred embodiment of the present invention, there is provided a precision optical element according to any of the previous claims, and wherein the precision of at least one of the first and second surfaces is such that the maximum peak to valley irregularity is less than one wavelength of red Helium Neon laser light.
Furthermore, in accordance with more preferred embodiments of the present invention, there is provided a precision optical element as described above, and wherein the element is a lens, or a double-sided mirror.
There is even further provided in accordance with a preferred embodiment of the present invention, a precision optical element as described above, which may be made of an infra-red transparent material, such as germanium, zinc selenide, zinc sulphide, silicon, gallium arsenide, calcium fluoride, or similar infra-red transmissive materials.
There is also provided in accordance with a further preferred embodiment of the present invention, a precision optical element as described above, and wherein the element also has a diffractive optics pattern turned on at least one of its surfaces.
There is provided in accordance with a still further preferred embodiment of the present invention, a vacuum chuck for holding a precision optical element which has a radial dimension and a first aspheric surface, during single point machining of a second aspheric surface thereon, and including a support surface of width significantly smaller than the radial dimension of the element, the support surface having an aspheric form matching that of the first aspheric surface of the element. Furthermore, in accordance with yet more preferred embodiments of the present invention, there is provided a vacuum chuck as described above, and wherein the volume inside of the support surface, meaning the space enclosed within the perimeter of the support surface, accommodates a vacuum, or a vacuum chuck as described above and which also includes at least one passage within the support surface, which accommodates a vacuum.
Furthermore, in accordance with yet another preferred embodiment of the present invention, there is provided a vacuum chuck as described above, and operative to hold the element during single point machining.
There is also provided in accordance with a further preferred embodiment of the present invention, a vacuum chuck for holding a precision optical element during single point fly cutting, and including a support surface of width substantially smaller than the linear dimensions of the surface of the element, the support surface having an aspheric form.
In accordance with yet another preferred embodiment of the present invention, there is provided a method of producing first and second aspheric surfaces on a precision optical element having a radial size, by means of single point machining, and including the steps of forming the first aspheric surface on the element, also forming on a vacuum chuck, a support surface of width in the radial direction significantly smaller than the radial size of the element, and having an aspheric form matched to the first aspheric surface formed on the element, and subsequently machining the second aspheric surface on the element while it is held by the first aspheric surface in the support surface of the vacuum chuck.
In accordance with a further preferred embodiment of the present invention, there is also provided a method of producing first and second aspheric surfaces on a precision optical element as described above, and wherein the first aspheric surface of the element is formed by machining.
In accordance with another preferred embodiment of the present invention, there is provided a method of producing first and second aspheric surfaces on a precision optical element as described above, and wherein the support surface of the vacuum chuck is formed by machining.
There is further provided in accordance with still another preferred embodiment of the present invention, a method of producing a double-sided aspheric optical element as described above, and also comprising the step of machining a diffractive optics pattern on at least one of the surfaces.
In accordance with another preferred embodiment of the present invention, there is provided a method of producing first and second aspheric surfaces on a precision optical element as described above, and wherein the precision of the optical element is such that the maximum peak to valley irregularity of at least one of its first and second surfaces is less than one wavelength of red Helium Neon laser light.
There is provided in accordance with a still further preferred embodiment of the present invention, an optical system including at least one precision optical element comprising two aspheric surfaces, at least one of which is produced by single point machining.
There is even further provided in accordance with a preferred embodiment of the present invention, an optical system as described above, and wherein the at least one precision optical element also comprises a diffractive optics pattern on at least one surface.
There is even further provided in accordance with a preferred embodiment of the present invention, an optical system as described above, and wherein the precision of the at least one optical element is such that the maximum peak to valley irregularity of at least one of its first and second surfaces is less than one wavelength of red Helium Neon laser light.
In accordance with other preferred embodiments of the present invention, the optical systems mentioned above may be used in thermal imaging applications.
Throughout this specification, the use of the term xe2x80x9clensxe2x80x9d is taken to include any optical element whose entry and exit surfaces have been given curvatures, such that the element has positive or negative focusing power, whether the xe2x80x9clensxe2x80x9d is in the form of a lens, a wedge, a prism, a plate, or any other optically useful shape.
Furthermore, it is appreciated that the scope of the invention is not limited to double sided aspheric elements manufactured by single point diamond turning or fly cutting, but to such elements manufactured by any machining technique requiring the use of the methods described herein, wherein the precision is such that the maximum surface peak-to-valley irregularity of the element is one wavelength (two fringes) at the red HeNe wavelength (0.63 xcexcm).